A professional Windows Desktop application built with C# and .NET that demonstrates the practical implementation of Symmetric Encryption (AES) and Hashing (SHA-256) to secure image files.
This project was developed as a practical application. It provides a real-world tool that protects user privacy by encrypting images (JPG/PNG) with a custom password. It solves the common issue of "fixed-length keys" by utilizing hashing for flexible user input.
- 🔒 Strong Encryption: Implements the AES-128 (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm for high-level security.
- 🗝️ Flexible Key Derivation: Uses SHA-256 Hashing to allow users to input any password length, which is then transformed into a valid 16-byte cryptographic key.
- 📥 Drag & Drop Interface: Modern UI supporting "Drag and Drop" for seamless image loading.
- 📜 Professional Error Logging: Integrated with the Windows Event Viewer to track and log errors (Cryptographic and System exceptions) without interrupting the user.
- Password to Key: The user input string is hashed using SHA-256, and the first 16 bytes are extracted to form the AES Key.
- File Structure: The IV is written at the very beginning (header) of the output file, followed by the encrypted image data.
- IV Extraction: The application reads the first 16 bytes from the encrypted file to retrieve the original IV.
- Data Restoration: Using the retrieved IV and the user's password, the algorithm decrypts the remaining bytes and restores the original JPG/PNG image with 100% integrity.
- Language: C#
- Framework: .NET Framework (WinForms)
- Security:
System.Security.Cryptography - Logging:
System.Diagnostics.EventLog
- Visual Studio 2022 (or later) with .NET Desktop Development workload.
- Windows OS (Required for Event Viewer integration).
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/AAkhzami/ImageCipher.git
- Open the .sln file in Visual Studio.
- Important: Run Visual Studio as Administrator (Required for the first run to create the Event Log source).
- Build and Start the application.
This app requires administrative rights because it uses the Windows Event Log to professionally track errors. A custom app.manifest is included to ensure the application requests these permissions upon startup.